Hard Core Logo (1996) (2024)

Popular reviews

• Review by Joshua Dysart ★★★★ 4

  Loved this.

  Wonderfully directed story about a punk band bassist named John Oxenberger who loses his prescription medication on the road and begins to spiral into mental illness in the middle of a tour. He’s surrounded by band mate toxicity masked as monkey business and knocked further askew by an LSD trip he’s absolutely in the wrong frame of mind for (No! Don't drop that tab, Ox!)

  There’s also a B plot about singer Joe Dick’s sexually repressed attraction to his lead guitarist, Billy Talent, that’s exceptionally well drawn. In fact this movie is incredibly authentic, extremely fucking funny in the most natural of ways, really earnest, does character and environment work very well, and is loud. It also has…

• Review by Christian Ryan ★★★★ 5

  A ROLLING THUNDER PICTURE.

  Oh, what could’ve been. Hell, what was.

  I’ll get to Hard Core Logo in a second, but let’s just take a moment to mourn the short life of one of the greatest film distribution companies of all time. Quentin Tarantino’s ROLLING THUNDER PICTURES came at probably the most formative time in my film education and started me down a path that would forever dominate my destiny. Just look at this slate of titles:

  The Beyond
  Chungking Express
  Detroit 9000
  Mighty Peking Man
  Sonatine
  Switchblade Sisters
  Curdled
  Hardcore Logo

  With films like Fist of Legend, Zombi 2, The Psychic, and an unnamed spaghetti western planned for release, it was a bit of a heartbreaker when Miramax refused…

• Review by Edith ★★★★★ 6

  So you think you can start a band, right? You'll break up, but time passes and wounds heal so you hit the road again, manipulated into getting back together, then slowly dissolve within a manic bell jar of your own making. Bruce McDonald is the king of the punk rock road trip, the perfect guy to realize a mockumentary on the very culture he lived in and adapted from. Perfect time, perfect place, perfect characters. On the surface may not be funny to the naked eye because it is entirely built on the relatability of the band to the point that every argument or rivalry is funny because you know and are these people. Meta-narrative on the essence of any…

• Review by Will Sloan

  You can smell this movie.

• Review by Justin Decloux

  Canadian Content

  It's illegal to be in a band and not be obsessed with HARD CORE LOGO.

  Joe Dick (Hugh Dillion) would go on to star in a Canadian police procedural TV show (FLASHPOINT) alongside Amy Jo Johnson (The Pink Power Ranger).

• Review by Edith ★★★★★ 4

  You know, since climbing out of the cave that was covid and reuniting with certain friends who by work stresses or moving or life were unavailable through that time, I've been revisiting quite a few movies that I have found since beginning Letterboxd. For so many years, I spent most of my "movie watching" showing people movies I already loved and seen ad nauseam (ahem, sorry to every date who had to sit through Holy Mountain) up until that beautiful time of 2018 I decided that I was tired of rehashing the old, ready for something new. Then, here I am, doing the same shtick all over again -- showing old movies to new friends.

  All that to say, is…

• Review by louferrigno ★★★ 5

  in 1984, This is Spinal Tap effectively created a new genre and ensured no one could top it upon its release. With its quick-witted satire on the pretentious behavior and idealization of rock acts, in a way that proved hilarious to audiences and distinctly familiar to rock musicians at the time, the "rock mockumentary" was born and demolished as soon as it was born, with many other respectable filmmakers attempting to repeat it but never able to come close. Toronto New Waver Bruce McDonald's Hard Core Logo is an admirable deviation from the usual old college try, still existing in a mockumentary form (and usually mislabeled as a Guest-like comedy because of that) but using it to pay tribute and…

• Review by Geoffrey Broomer ★★★★½ 8

  Watched for the Edith Wharton collab. I’ve rewritten this a few times, but continue to search for the right words - so am merely logging it to show my fellow collaborators the same courtesy they extend me.

  Hard Core Logo was selected over another mockumentary under the thinking that it was important to get more eyes on it. A frequent name in lists celebrating my countries best cinematic output, it’s odd to think of it as under the radar, niche, or somehow unknown. Shows my small town mindset.

• Review by Michelle Parsons ★★★★½ 6

  This was so much fun!!! I’d been meaning to watch HCL for 25 years ever since Quentin’s Rolling Thunder label released it, and it definitely did not disappoint! I laughed out loud more than once. :)

• Review by Nick Langdon ★★★★ 14

  Way back, when I lived in Halifax Nova Scotia, there was this venue called Stage 9 (you know the place, just above Pizza Corner on Grafton St), and every Wednesday they had a sort of punk/metal/rock open mic night, and the house band, so to speak, was the legendary hardcore/crust outfit System Shit. There was a regular crew, such as myself, the guys from Hellacaust, Terratomb, and others like "Sinister" Steve, "Surgeon Visceral" Dave and occasionally even "Speed Metal" Mike who would go and support our local scene by drinking a lot of Alexander Keith's and Olands (choice of System Shit main man D-Rock), even when the outside patio was under 50cm of snow, that's when Steve famously took off…

• Review by Michelle Parsons ★★★★

  Bucky Haight!! 🙌🏻

• Review by MushiMinion ★★★

  * Collab Film Club *

  This Is Not Spinal Tap

  Whatever you do, I would strongly advise against walking into this expecting a typical mockumentary. This may be a sly examination of a niche subset of society not unlike what Christopher Guest lovingly deconstructs, however this could only be described as a comedy in the driest of terms. Beyond the meager helpings of humor, Bruce McDonald explores the struggles behind holding a music group together, as well as the sadness and frustrations of a family falling apart. Hard Core Logo is an open wound masquerading as satire.

  It has far more in-common with Clerks, and even that would paint a misleading picture.

  I respect this for committing to being honest…